“Zed’s Dead” multiplayer isometric shooter

I have been working on a multiplayer isometric shooter. The basic idea is that there are 2 opposing teams of players fighting various scenarios on city maps, and the game runs over a LAN. There are also zombies in the game, but they act as obstacles (or opportunities?) during the core player-v-player game, rather than being the primary challenge. One cool thing that will be included is that players can use their smartphones as twinstick controllers: so even if they don’t have a computer available, they will still be able to play – this idea was prototyped successfully in a recent game jam that I took part in.

The current graphics come from some rather excellent artists over on graphicriver.net. I’m actively seeking a skilled pixel artist to work with me on bringing this forward and fleshing it out with more graphics, GUI interfaces, etc.

The core technologies are javascript, pixijs for rendering, node webkit for cross-platform deployment (Windows, OSX, Linux) (and for its extensions adding things that would be impossible in a normal web browser.. such as websocket/UDP server, read/write native files, etc.), and websockets/UDP libraries in nodejs for networking.

I’ve got lots of interesting things to say on the technicalities of how this is coming together, and on the actual gameplay concepts.. but I’ll leave that all until future posts.

I hope to have a playable demo available later this week.

There’s a brand-new Facebook page for the game here

“Hittin’ Worlds” Game Jam Winner

I took part in a game jam on Saturday, and we won! ;-) My main collaborator was artist Niall O’Reilly from local game art company DoomCube.

The game runs using HTML5/Canvas, with a node.js websockets server. The ‘render client’ ran on my laptop and players ran the ‘controller client’ on their phones.. this seems like a really nice way to do casual LAN-style multiplayer games, and it’s a configuration I have been thinking about for a few weeks. I just need to figure out a killer party game idea to use it with!

In “Hittin’ Worlds” Each player plays as a planet, in orbit around a sun. Asteroids are flying about, and players have to use their forcefield to deflect them. By using a virtual joystick-style controller on their phone, they orient the forcefield in specific directions.. incoming asteroids get deflected in that direction. The idea is that players fling the rocks at each other while defending themselves.

We also had a really nice piece of custom music written by a guy called Ian, from Athlone/Reading.

Musclecar Online 82% of the way to top 100 in Steam Greenlight

Musclecar Online is now 82% of the way to the top 100 games on Steam Greenlight.

Let’s give it a last push and get the game released on the biggest appstore for PC and Mac gamers!

If we get released on Steam, I will commit to adding the following features to the game, which have been the main things that the players have been asking me for:

1. Making it ‘proper’ 3D driving, with..
2. Hilly/Offroad terrain circuits.. which can be sculpted in the track designer
3. Springy offroad suspension (see technical demo of this below)
4. Bridges
5. Customised, player-uploaded car skins

Here’s some details on the offroad suspension I have been working on: Shiva Raycast Car

Darkwind marches towards Steam

I haven’t posted on here in too long, and it’s mostly because I have been very busy working on Darkwind again. The big news is that the game was greenlit in May, for release on Steam around the end of August.

Some of the main things I have been working on are:
– making the game ‘free to play’ with an in-game premium currency (‘Chromes’)
– overhaul of the lobby graphics
– integration of significant amount of functionality in the game client that was previously only available on the web site.

The last point is quite important, as we’ll hopefully get a big influx of new players from Steam, and the new player experience needs to be as good as it can. The split between 3D gameplay and web-based management has always been a bit awkward, so now you’ll be able to do core management of gang and vehicular assets from within the client, and complete management of squads – including set-up, travel, scouting, and multiplayer arrangement.

I have also been working again with Taskmasterpeace, one of the two guys who recorded all the excellent ‘sport commentator’ style vocals in the game. Task has been doing voice-overs for a series of tutorials I’m making about Darkwind.

Here’s a two-part tutorial on Deathracing:

Part 1: setting up

Part 2: playing the deathrace